


The Night has reached its End

by fried_flamingo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e04 The End, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Missing Scene, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fried_flamingo/pseuds/fried_flamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a common idea that your last hours are a time to unburden the soul, to say the words that you’ll never get the chance to say again.  And there is a word that’s lain dormant between them, unuttered.  There are some who believe that word to hold the magic of the ages, more powerful that any Enochian incantation.  But this thing he feels for Cas?  Love just isn’t loud enough to capture it.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>In the hours before battling Lucifer, Cas and Dean think about all that has brought them to this moment. </b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salr323](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salr323/gifts).



> My first work in this fandom, I'd like to gift it to Sal for opening my eyes to the love of ages that is Destiel :)

Time had passed strange that day, a messy rush and drag from one hour to the next. Plans made, there’s nothing left to do now but think. In the thickening darkness, the Colt is barely there; a suggestion of metal carved blue from the table’s wood. Dean can’t imagine how it would ever be enough to bring down an archangel, but in this wasteland that god, in the most literal sense, has forsaken, it’s all they’ve got. And, if Dean’s being honest with himself, he’s become something of an expert in making angels fall.

There’s almost a comedy about it; in times past, Dean Winchester would have said that he couldn’t be further removed from Heaven. But for too long, he’s been dealing with God’s most disobedient children, their fickle moods and tantrums. Dean doesn’t know what the going rate for babysitting is in the great beyond, but he figures he’s due a few bucks for services rendered.

Yet for all his experience, all the kills he can claim and all he thought he’d learned, one visit from the past was all it took to undermine the man he’d become since the world went to hell. He remembers, of course, how things had felt back then, remembers it clear and cutting as ice. He also remembers how carefully he thought he’d hidden it. But one glance at his face, the past him, as he watched the stoner in the torn jeans and old boots, brought that fragile illusion tumbling down. 

If Dean had doubted whether this man was truly a version of himself, he only needed to watch his eyes as he looked at Cas to know the truth. This was him. This was Dean Winchester, circa 2009, in wretched, hopeless, call-it-anything-but-what-it-is love with Castiel the Fallen Angel. Dean remembers that feeling well. The kicker, he realizes, is this: while that love had been twisted in on itself, denied and buried deeper than a damned soul, there was something pure about it. 

Back in the day, despite the countless shit-storms they’d weathered, his love for Cas had been born from the abiding knowledge that they had always been marked for each other. Call it fate, destiny, call it a ‘profound bond’ – there was no other place Dean was supposed to be than by Castiel’s side. He remembers Cas as he was when they met; ablaze with divine power, righteous in his grace. It was terrifying and it was dazzling, and there were times when Dean needed reminding how respiration worked. 

And there was that other bright and beautiful thing they’d had – hope. Why else did they fight, but in the hope of something better? The hope that the good would always win out and the world would always be saved. Apocalypse Not Just Yet.

The Colt is more clearly visible now. A solid presence in the room, but when he picks it up, its weight feels more a burden than a comfort. Tomorrow will be it for him. Perhaps for them all. Sure, the croats could be fended off indefinitely and Camp Chitaqua is a reasonable fortress. One or two of their number might get picked off whenever a supply run was necessary, but there are always stragglers and wanderers to join their ranks. This could be their refuge, their hiding place. But Dean Winchester has never run from a fight and, more than that, there is a door to be closed; he can’t leave Sammy as puppet to the bastard who wore him like a cheap suit. This time tomorrow, the Colt will have been fired and it’s likely that Dean will die in the process.

Part of him longs for it; release is an attractive prospect. When it’s over, it’s over. Nothing left here to miss. But Dean’s powers of self-deception are no longer quite as honed as those of the man quartered just a few cabins away; there’s one goodbye he doesn’t want to say, one question he doesn’t want to ask, but it’s one he can’t avoid.  


_Last night on Earth. What are your plans?_

There’s no strip joint to be thrown out of this time. No laughs to be had. But Dean won’t spend this night alone, he knows that much.

Castiel’s entrances used to be instant, heralded by that whisper and flap of hidden wings. Now, it’s a slow stamp of boots on the porch, the rattle of the door, and the tired crack of his joints as he stretches his shoulders. Dean doesn’t need to turn round to know it all by rote. There’s a moment of silence and then the scratch and hiss of a match, before the room is bathed in the yellow glow from the oil lamp. He looks over his shoulder to see Cas throw himself back on the bed, arm slung over his eyes.

“Orgy finished so soon?”

There’s another beat, then Cas says, “I’m afraid I had to disappoint the girls.”

For an instant, Dean is stung by a fear that tightens in his guts.

_I like past you._

He doesn’t want to ask the question, but his panic is something tangible, bitter on his tongue. He goes back to toying with the Colt. “Uh, where…?”

“I wasn’t with him.”

His relief is as overwhelming as his fear. The most alarming thing is, he wouldn’t have blamed Cas. Of course he liked past him. Past him was decent and honorable and everything Dean wishes he could still be. The irony that past him thought he was a worthless piece of shit who failed everyone he loved isn’t lost on Dean. Whoever said hindsight was 20:20 was on the fucking money.

Two thuds tell him that Cas has kicked off his boots and when Dean looks again, he’s rolled over on the bed, one arm tucked under the pillow propping up his head. He’s never sure why Cas comes here rather than spending the night in his own cabin, with its brocade comforter and scented candles. There’s the obvious, of course – he’ll never question that too closely – but even after, Cas always stays in Dean’s rickety bed, with the hard mattress and coarse blankets. Whatever else they do, whomever else they fuck, it happens elsewhere. This room, he supposes, has become something like home, or a small fragment of it anyway. Tomorrow, he’ll have to destroy it all. 

His attention has drifted and when he looks up again, Cas is watching him with an expression that’s rare these days, something between wonderment and puzzlement, like he’s trying to read him from the heart outward.

“What’s going on, Dean?”

_You know me,_ Dean thinks. _You know me by know. Understand what I need to ask of you_

He’s long been an open book to Cas. After Detroit, when Sam – no, _Lucifer_ had put every demon he had on their tail, the truth was finally acknowledged between them as they hid in the derelict office of a hastily warded and salted Gas ‘n’ Sip; after that night, there seemed little point hiding anything else. Still, though, words were sometimes hard.

 _You mark the passing of time for me_ , Dean wants to say. _Cut me open and count the rings you’ve left on my soul._ But Dean never has been one for all that poetic crap and the words would feel strange on his tongue. Besides, the passing of time feels like it’s almost done and the clock ticks a little less each day. Like stars on the brink of supernova, soon they’ll blink out of existence altogether.

_Soon._

He’s never given the idea form before, but Dean suddenly understands how much ‘soon’ used to be his endgame, and ‘later, when this is fixed’ was a perpetual excuse. Cowardice has a lot to answer for. But ‘soon’ no longer holds promise and later isn’t an option. There’s only now.

Dean lets the Colt clatter down on the table and is by the bed in three strides. He grabs Cas by the shirt and hauls him to his feet. His hands are in his hair, his mouth on his, and it’s like he can’t pull him close enough against his body. It’s nothing new for them, this act; the Gas ‘n’ Sip was the first time of many. But now there’s an urgency that Dean has never felt before, an aching that goes beyond the erection that’s threatening to burst open his fly. Cas responds in a way that tells Dean he feels it too, but goddamnit he’s too tender. Dean doesn’t need tenderness right now; he needs heat and hardness. Anything softer and he thinks he might just split apart.

He grabs the front of Cas’s shirt again, ripping it open even as he uses it to throw him backwards against the wall. His hand is pulling at Cas’s belt, lips on his neck, teeth biting at his collar bone, but even as Cas’s hands are snaking under Dean’s shirt, he’s pushing him away.

“Dean…” Dean silences him with another kiss, which Cas succumbs to momentarily, before pulling back. “Dean, tell me what’s going on.”

“Cas, damnit,” growls Dean against the stubble of his jaw, “there’s a time for talking and this ain’t it.” But he knows he’s only delaying the inevitable.

It’s a common idea that your last hours are a time to unburden the soul, to say the words that you’ll never get the chance to say again. And there is a word that’s lain dormant between them, unuttered. There are some who believe that word to hold the magic of the ages, more powerful that any Enochian incantation. But this thing he feels for Cas? Love just isn’t loud enough to capture it.

_I need you._

Basic, gut-deep and essential. To describe this as anything other than need was to do it a world of injustice. Because Dean had loved before, of course he had. And he knew that love was transient, commonplace, inadequate. 

He’d loved Sam. Hell, there was a time when his entire existence had been about his love for that boy. But there were also times when that love had felt like a chain around his neck and Dean isn’t stupid enough to equate that fucked up, co-dependent bond with what he shares with Cas.

He’d loved his father, but loving John Winchester was like a war wound – something to be endured for the greater good, but ultimately a source of suffering. Dean had felt something like relief when it was over.

Dean doesn’t just love Castiel. He needs him. Like water, like breath, like sustenance. He’s dead without it. It makes the request he has to make of him all the harder.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The human condition, he’s learned is frequently framed around loss, and the fear of it. It has shaped Dean throughout his life, hardened him, and Castiel, for his shame, has played his own part in strengthening that fear. It seems only fitting that he should now feel it too.

Castiel is a watcher of history. From ambitious fish to falling towers, he has borne witness to the great events of time. He knows that all that will happen has already happened, and all that is foretold has already come to pass. Humans though, he realized long ago, quantify time differently; to them, the past is fixed and measureable, the future an unknown variable. But in truth, there is no old or new. There is only the ever-changing. Castiel, watcher of history, was called into creation before time existed, and for billions of years, this truth was absolute.

Then he was summoned to the Siege of Hell to raise up the Righteous Man. And in a single moment, all that he knew of himself was lost.

Dean Winchester is his folly, his reason for being, his damnation and salvation. Never did he, the angel of tears and solitude, think that he would find so vivid a point in the universe as the man whose skin he imprinted with his mark. All the ages of the cosmos are as nothing when compared to the past six years.

There is no old or new, but there is a beginning and an end. And the rapid beat of Dean’s heart, the grief in his eyes, this desperate, sorrowful hunger… all are enough to tell Castiel that the end is not far away. Tomorrow, they face Lucifer – both their brothers merged into one awful enemy – and it’s a battle they have little hope of winning. If God had been with them, it would have been so very different, for Lucifer knew what it was to suffer the wrath of the Almighty and would not dare oppose him again. But God is far from here, and Cas can no longer deny that his absence long ago turned into neglect. Hope is a scarce commodity for all of mankind now. 

There was a moment, Cas thinks, when the arrival of Dean from the past had sparked some renewed energy and sense of purpose. He had forgotten how bright Dean once shone; the recognition had almost floored him. But though circumstance has tarnished his silver, on his Dean there remains a patina of honor and goodness. No matter how many decadent stupors Cas plunges himself into, he will never envision himself in any other place but by this man’s side through every trial. 

He lets Dean push the shirt from his shoulders, savoring the feel of his calloused hands along his skin. When taking a vessel, no one had explained to him the pleasure that could be had in the corporeal, how a membrane of tissue and nerve-endings could be touched in a way that would stop the breath in one’s chest. Cas closes Dean’s eyes with kisses pressed to the lids, smoothes his thumbs along his cheekbones, and Dean calms beneath his touch. Cas would wish all his pain away if he could, heal every hurt. But his grace is so diminished that he feels hardly worthy of calling himself angel anymore, hardly worthy of claiming this man as his own. For all he’s given up for him, it will never be enough. “I would have melted glaciers for you,” he whispers against Dean’s temple. “I would have drowned continents.”

But the hard set of Dean’s jaw, the way his forehead drops to Cas’s shoulder, show that he too understands how late it is. The hour draws on and there are no grand gestures left to be had. Castiel had wanted to grant this man infinity. But forever is an empty promise now and time lessens for them like a lake shrinking in a drought. 

The human condition, he’s learned is frequently framed around loss, and the fear of it. It has shaped Dean throughout his life, hardened him, and Castiel, for his shame, has played his own part in strengthening that fear. It seems only fitting that he should now feel it too. Since Sam’s fall, they have faced many monsters together, and afterwards tasted the sweat of the battle on each other’s skin. And yet there is a finality now; an inescapable truth that there is less than one spin of the Earth left to them.

Dean’s head still rests on his shoulder and Castiel feels moisture drip there, running across his collar bone and down his chest. Dean’s breath comes in silent shudders beneath the palms of Cas’s hands. There is more going on here than he understands.

“Dean?” He cups Dean’s face in his hand, once again wishing for his power to heal, tilts it up, but still Dean avoids his gaze, chasing instead Cas’s lips with his own. Dean Winchester is skilled in the art of avoidance, but Castiel knows by now the tricks he employs. He dodges the kiss.

“Cas, please…” Tears still glisten on his skin, but his eyes are diamond-set, hard and unyielding.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Dean runs his hand over the swelling in Cas’s jeans in a way that elicits an involuntary groan. “I thought I was being clear enough.” Cas drops his head back against the wall, swallowing, and Dean takes the opportunity to graze his teeth along the line of his throat.

“No, I… Dean!” Cas grabs his shoulders and pushes him back. When Dean eventually meets his eye, understanding dawns. It’s not the prospect of battle that has him weighted down, not even the knowledge that he must shoot the vessel that once was his brother, for that is an old and ragged grief. Dean has a plan and Cas now realizes that there is a part in it specifically for him. And that is what’s breaking him in two.

“Ask me,” Cas says, surprised at the evenness of his tone; he was a warrior once, and there is steel within him yet.

“Cas, I can’t… I –”

“Ask me.”

Dean braces himself on the wall to either side of Cas’s head and shuts his eyes. “He’ll know we’re coming. He knows practically every damn move we make.”

“And so he’ll set a trap.”

“Yes.”

Cas smiles and it feels fragile on his face, all too human. “And someone has to spring that trap so you can get to Lucifer.”

Dean’s head dips forward and Cas watches as a drop of water falls from his face, and he thinks he might be able to make out each reflection on its concave surface. It pools on the floor, clearing a perfect circle in the dust there. There was a time he would have understood its structure on a molecular level; now he just knows it means goodbye.

“Yeah, what the hell?” he says, taking refuge in the persona he’s built for the past five years, a persona that had been based on what people call the sincerest form of flattery. “We’re all gonna die anyway, huh?”

“Don’t, Cas.”

There’s a part of Cas that doesn’t want to make it easy for Dean. He wants to wail and rage at him for letting this end, for closing the door on everything they have so soon.

_I waited millennia for this and I didn’t even know I was waiting._

But Castiel was lost the first time he laid hands on Dean Winchester, and he always comes when he calls. He schools his features, takes a moment to revel in the beauty of the man before him and says, “Tell me what you need me to do.”

Afterwards, when every painful step of the plan is agreed, they finish what they started. For this corner of the cosmos has become something like home and Castiel, the Fallen Angel, will cling to it while he can.

***


End file.
